With the holiday season comes the shopping season, crowds of people will be hitting the stores to get their hands on holiday gifts and seasonal sales. As the task of shopping online becomes easier and more efficient a larger number of people prefer being able to buy what they want with a few simple clicks on the computer - Why waste hours walking around shopping malls trying to find those holiday gifts when you can make orders in a matter of minutes from home?

Shopping online can be a remarkable way to save precious time and in most cases money as well when buying holiday gifts. Including saving time and money, online shopping has other advantages too; like being able to order a gift online, have it gift wrapped with a card and have it shipped directly to the person you want to send it to. Especially during the holiday season many online vendors provide gift wrapping options.

Last week we spoke about ways to improve your website so as to attract more vistors and most importantly convert them. Today we will discuss a few more important tips that will help your website and business on the journey to better conversions and sales.

Problem Solving:

Problem Solving is another major point to consider when designing your website. When people visit your website for the first time, they usually want to know what your business can do for them rather than just general information about your business. In most cases they will have a problem – either a desire for a specific product or service, or to find information to help with a query they may have. The best way to convert this type of visitor into a customer is to make sure that the first page they see provides a solution to the specific problem they have...

Working towards generating good website traffic is important but what is more important is being able to convert that traffic into sales. It is the desire of all business owners that their business website will bring in more leads and sales, even the ones who have a high volume of traffic on their websites wish to know which of those clicks resulted in sales. Getting more sales is usually the main purpose of most business websites and having a website that converts traffic is of utmost importance. Although a website may have a lot of traffic it does not necessarily mean that the website will be resulting in an equally high rate of conversion.

When prospective customers visit your website, are they going to be satisfied with what they see? – The first impression is usually the lasting impression. How does your website serve them? And are you giving each visitor what they want?

Email Marketing is one of the cheapest and most effective ways for a business to reach and communicate with its potential customers. By carefully planning and executing an online marketing campaign using email newsletters, a company is no doubt increasing its exposure as well as creating opportunities for more business. Over the last two weeks on the Web Choice Online blog we have discussed the important things to consider when designing an email newsletter, as well as information on building the ideal mailing list. Today we will discuss a few other points that need to be considered so as to improve the response to your email newsletters and increase those clicks.

Although you may have a great looking newsletter that is aesthetically pleasing and a good mailing list, this does not necessarily mean that you are likely to get a positive response from your email newsletters. The quality of the content is equally important.

The first and foremost step in any marketing campaign is to set up a client list of information that can be used when sending out marketing emails or newsletters. Your mailing list will primarily contain email addresses, and may also contain other useful data which can be used to identify your target market. Using the information in your mailing list you may be able to send a marketing email specifically to people who have interest in the topic of the email. This results in a more effective marketing strategy.

Email Marketing is an ideal method for any business owner looking for a simple and effective way to reach customers. Email Marketing is cheap because it's done online (there's no physical medium like traditional mail) and the fact that there is little to no cost in creating an email newsletter also makes it cheaper. In addition to being inexpensive, email marketing also helps to reach a larger audience within a short period of time as well as target them more specifically based on information in your customer database or mailing list.

Like most types of online marketing, email marketing has certain aspects that must be considered for an effective outcome from the marketing campaign. Besides having a subject line that is eye catching in contrast to other emails in your target audience's inbox as well as good content within the email, the actual design and look of it must also impress and attract the recipient. Some of the important factors to consider have been discussed below.

Choosing a domain name for your business website is an integral part of the success of your future website. It is similar to selecting the name of your company or product, careful thought and consideration must go into choosing the domain name. There are different aspects to consider such as: the specific purpose of your website, the demographics and intended audience, but most importantly you must choose a name that fits your business well and is also easy to market and promote. The domain name is a vital part of creating your online presence and can say a lot about you and your company.

Last week on our blog we discussed two of the five malicious threats users of facebook are prone to. We outlined the 'Koobface' &amp; 'Palevo' worms as well as the 'Zeus' trojan and how you can protect yourself from these. Todays blog post covers the details of the other malicious attacks.

3. Clickjacking also known as 'Likejacking':

Another type of social engineering attack that tricks users into clicking on seemingly normal aspects of a facebook post and its functionalities resulting in a mass spread of the malicious script. When a user ‘likes’ certain media or posts it allows these to be shared with their friends - people see posts liked by their friends on the newsfeed and tend to click on it themselves. These ‘likejacking’ scripts make use of this like feature to spread the malicious content.

Majority of ‘likejacking’ scams follow the same structure:

uses an interesting and alluring title about some fake article or media post to captivate interest

wait for users to like the article

re-post itself on the newsfeed

keep repeating this format

Although this process isn’t always directly harmful, it can be annoying and can also lead to spammy websites which in turn can result in viruses and loss of sensitive information. These forms of attacks rely on exploiting peoples inquisitiveness by using enticing titles like “See what happens to this man after he takes on the police” or something about a trending newsworthy event. They also exploit trust as the links maybe disguised as posts from your friends

Safeguarding yourself from ‘Likejacking’:

Keep an eye out and avoid clicking on articles that have titles that are too ludicrous to be true. Don’t like everything, use caution when clicking, liking or sharing posts and be doubtful of any free offers that seem out of place.

Last week on the Web Choice Online blog we discussed some tips to maintaining a secure environment on facebook, so as to protect your sensitive personal information and ensure online safety. Today we will discuss some of the most notorious types of malicious attacks on facebook as well as how you can protect yourself from these common threats.

With the popularity of facebook increasing dramatically over the last few years, there has been an emergence of a variety of malicious attacks that are focusing specifically on people rather than technology. What this means is these threats are trying to obtain sensitive personal information and directly affect individual users rather than just the technology they use.

As popular as facebook is with users, it is also a very attractive tool for cyber-criminals who use social engineering in order to spread malicious content or earn money unethically. Social engineering is used to effectively convince people to unknowingly act in the interest of cyber-criminals. Social engineering involves disguising these attacks in ways that would convince people to trust them, like using well-known icons or interesting phrases that will be used to lure people into clicking these. Five common threats you may encounter as a facebook user have been outlined below.

Facebook is the largest social networking site today and has over half a billion users all sharing their personal information (like messages, interests, photos and videos). Being a communication channel with so much online data flow, it is prone to an assortment of cyber-attacks. Ever since Facebook’s boom in popularity and increase in users, there have been a number of instances where people have lost money or even their careers as result of bad online security and privacy. Like with any online communication channel, security is always an issue and the possibility of personal information being exploited is present. The key to protecting your self is knowing how you can fall victim to these malicious attacks and understanding the security features available to you. Some possible attacks and useful tips to protecting yourself are outlined below. Privacy and Security are always a major concern with regard to all online services.